Bill Knott’s poem, “Monodrama,” is a bizarre sonnet whose meaning eludes even as the final couplet rings its close:

MONODRAMA

Don’t think, I said, that because I denyMyself in your presence I do so in mine—But whom was I talking to? The room, emptyBeyond any standpoint I could attain,

Seemed all sill to stare off before someone’sFull length nude, at halfmast the pubic flagMourned every loss of disguise, allegianceMore to the word perhaps than its image—

But predators always bite the nape firstTo taste the flower on the spine-stem, soI spoke again, which shows how unrehearsedI failed to be. I went to the window:

Sky from your vantage of death, try to see.Flesh drawn back for the first act of wound, it’s me.

–Bill Knott

In round one, Knott upset Robert Bly and a cheering section at the John Crowe Ransom Arena which included a whole class of Harvard poets, Vietnam War Protestor poets and even drummer John Densmore of the Doors.

Wine intoxicates the body, just as poetry intoxicates the mind, and both make us mad. Both have refinements, and since a little madness is deemed good, poetry is taught in school and wine is served in public houses.

Every story (memories) is a piece of a larger one; what we leave out is the key to story-telling. If we leave almost everything out, it’s a poem—or so many poets think.

Even a long story still leaves a lot out, but even a short poem is about what we put in. So are many poets mistaken in their art, thinking to write poems by leaving things out, confusing the poem with the story. Stories tease and poems infuriate—when they try to be stories. As soon as a poem tries to be a story by leaving things out, it fails, because after we read a poem we should feel nothing has been left out. A poem is what’s there, a story is what is not there.

For this reason, I like this Dugan poem:

Drunken Memories of Anne Sexton

The first and last time I metmy ex-lover Anne Sexton was ata protest poetry reading againstsome anti-constitutional war in Asiawhen some academic son of a bitch,to test her reputation as a drunk,gave her a beer glass full of wineafter our reading. She drankit all down while staring at mefull in the face and then said“I don’t care what you think,you know” as if I washer ex-what, husband, loverwhat? and just as Iwas just about to say Iloved her, I was, what,was, interrupted by my beautiful enemyGalway Kinnell, who said to her“Just as I was told, your eyes,you have one blue and one green”and there they were, the twobeautiful poets, staring ateach others’ beautiful eyesas I drank the lees of her wine.

–Alan Dugan

MARLA MUSE: What is the point of the story? I don’t get it.

The story? You mean the poem?

MARLA MUSE: The poem…the story…you know what I mean…!

The point is not to be sentimental, even when drunk. To be bad-ass.

MARLA MUSE: But it has no point precisely because it’s sentimental.

When it comes to sentimentality all poems have leaky roofs; the sentimentality gets in. Isn’t it true? The Victorians, according to the moderns, were sentimental, but isn’t it funny how looking back at modern poetry now it’s sentimental, too. Sentimentality is poetry’s coin. All poetry is sentimental.

MARLA MUSE: Sigh. I think you’re right.

Hayden Carruth is a tough old son of a gun. Here’s how he battles Dugan:

The Quality of Wine

This wine is really awfulI’ve been drinking for a year now, myretirement. Rossi Chablis in a jugfrom Oneida liquors, the best I can afford. Awful. But at leastI can afford it. I don’t need to go out and begon the street like the guyson South Warren in Syracuse, eyesburning in their sockets like acid.And my sweetheart rubs my back when I’mknotted in arthritis and swollenmuscles. The five stages of deathare fear, anger, resentment, renunciation,and—? Apparently the book doesn’t saywhat the fifth stage is. And neitherdoes the wine. Is it happiness? That’swhat I think anyway, and I know I’ve beenthrough fear and anger and resentment and at leastpart way through renunciation too, maybealmost the whole way. A slow procedure,like calling the Medicare office, on holdfor hours and then the recorded voice says, “Hang upand dial again.” Yet the dayshasten theygo by fast enough. They fucking fly like the wind. Oh,Sweetheart, Mrs. Manitou of the Stockbridge Valley,my Red Head, my Absecon Lakshmi of the Marshlights,my beautiful, beautiful Baby Doll,let the dying be long.

–Hayden Curruth

That may not be Victorian sentimentality, but this poem is still swimming in sentimentality.

MARLA MUSE: Those Roman poets! Now they could put away the wine and still ravish me…

Let’s focus on the contest before us, Marla.

MARLA MUSE: I like the Dugan poem because it brings a scene to life: for a moment you feel you are there, in the presence of Anne Sexton herself, but the Carruth, as sweet as it is, is just talk.

Yes, the Dugan has a cinematic quality which the garrulous Carruth poem lacks, and it’s the key to the memorable poem, isn’t it, almost as if cinema pre-dates story-telling, predates looking, even. The term some poets use is ‘the camera is running’ or ‘there’s film in the camera;’ look, right here:

She drank
it all down while staring at me
full in the face and then said
“I don’t care what you think,
you know” as if I was
her ex-what, husband, lover
what? and just as I
was just about to say I
loved her, I was, what,
was, interrupted by my beautiful enemy
Galway Kinnell, who said to her

So there it is, that ‘cinematic, real time’ effect which we get from all the famous poets, from Homer to Dante to Shakespeare to Milton to “Stopping By A Woods On A Snowy Evening.” We’re there in the scene.